Laptop just dropping out

Ding, Dang-nab-it! For some strange (aren't they always) reason, my laptop has been "dropping-out" in the last three days. Now, "dropping-out" is: while viewing a web-site the screen just goes black with the cursor arrow still on it, but the cursor cannot be moved. No certain web-site either, actually the last time it happened I was on this site about twenty minutes ago. Since the first incident, on Tuesday, I have learned not to touch anything and it will come back on exactly where I was at, all by itself. This take about eight (8) to twelve (12) minutes to happen. I have ran my "Webroot Anti-Virus/Anti-Spyware", and my "Anti-MalWare" and they find nothing. I've ran the "disc clean-up" and "de-frag". Only one web-site open at any time, unless I click a link related to the topic, then only one. I'm showing that I still have 24GB of free space on the "C" drive, so I don't think it's crowded. Any suggestions, please? Thanks, David

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Thanks, frozenstar. I'm thinking, at this time, it may be the motherboard (big OUCH there) as the lcd screen does not seem to have any problems at any given time. As far as the video card, it's a possibility I'm sure. I bought this Toshiba at a Best Buy on sale, and had upgrades done in the store at that time. It has never been touched since and has been flawless, to me at least. Maybe after the Christmas rush I will go to visit my sister and take it back to Best Buy to have it "anal-ized", as a co-worker used to say. Merry Christmas to all, David

3. Check your eventlog (application and system) right after one of these occurrences. (You can right click My Computer, click manage, and go to eventlogs - or click start>run ((Or WindowsKey+R)) and then type in "eventvwr".) Look for any red x's or yellow !'s right within the timeframe of the little blackout seizure your machine is having.

Probably a heat sink rather than a fan on the vidya card - if heat is the issue, the whole thing will probably need to be broken down and cleaned. I would also re-thermal paste the CPU and any other applicable heat sinks.

Important data has been backed up. Toshiba Satellite M35X-S111. I did try the video driver update and was informed that I have the latest driver. Only happens when I am on the web, using FF, tried using IE for one day, same problem (just once). I'm currently using an "Antec" cool pad, as I sit with laptop on my lap a lot, no intake ports blocked and warm air coming from the discharge ports. I'll run the Amico link to see what it shows. I'll also have to check the event log also. It certainly is time to open it up for a good visual inspection and cleaning I know. I now have another problem, which may or may not be related. I've noticed that I cannot tap my touchpad (mouse) to lock the cursor and scroll using the right side of the touch pad. Tapping the touchpad does lock it in to use the "down" or "up" arrow keys to scroll though. I've gone all through the touchpad issues to no avail. Could these two problems be connected? Thanks, David

Important data has been backed up. Toshiba Satellite M35X-S111. I did try the video driver update and was informed that I have the latest driver. Only happens when I am on the web, using FF, tried using IE for one day, same problem (just once). I'm currently using an "Antec" cool pad, as I sit with laptop on my lap a lot, no intake ports blocked and warm air coming from the discharge ports. I'll run the Amico link to see what it shows. I'll also have to check the event log also. It certainly is time to open it up for a good visual inspection and cleaning I know. I now have another problem, which may or may not be related. I've noticed that I cannot tap my touchpad (mouse) to lock the cursor and scroll using the right side of the touch pad. Tapping the touchpad does lock it in to use the "down" or "up" arrow keys to scroll though. I've gone all through the touchpad issues to no avail. Could these two problems be connected? Thanks, David

It's extremely odd that it just happens in browsers... of course, do you do much else with that machine? Browsers are memory hogs these days and if you happen to have some kind of memory issue that COULD be the cause.

I don't think the problems are likely related, but they certainly COULD be... if they are, I would say possibly bad RAM, a loose connection, or a motherboard getting ready to cash in it's chips.

Some other things to try....

1. Next time it does this, try using the keyboard shortcut to suspend the computer. If it works, bring it out of suspend and see what happens.

2. Download http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb896645.aspx - Process Monitor - and kick this heifer off before you start browsing. If you have the disk space, log it too. Keep an eye on the time. When your computer goes Patty Hearst style on you, wait until it snaps out of it and then stop the logging. Snip from like 2 or 3 minutes before the outage until right after the outage. Post that here.

This could rule out something in your OS, drivers, etc... without doing a reinstall of Windows.

5. Shutdown and pop the case. RAM should be easy enough to get to. If you aren't really comfortable doing this off the cuff, let me know and we can do like a step by step. It SHOULD be fairly easy to get to the RAM, the HD, and like probably the wireless card. So, start with re-seating the RAM. See if that works. Assuming you have two sticks (Make a small mark on one of the stickers if they are identical), and if re-seating does not work, try swapping their slots. If that does not work, pull one... leave the other in it's slot. Check that. If that does not work, pull that stick and pop the other into the other slot. That should be enough, but if you are OCD and have the time, you could try each stick individually in each slot. (Very unlikely to produce anything, but you never know!)

6. As an alternative to the Linux LiveCD route, you could also try installing VMware or another virtualization program... fire up an instance of XP in there, and see what that does. This is hardcore nerdery, so you can most likely disregard, but I was up 16 hours fighting an ESX upgrade last night so I am all kinds of improvise, adapt, overcome (and caffeinated).

sounds like you covered most everything i was going to add today...
i was coming back to mention the ram. sometimes the sticks get a wee bit of corrosion.
is knoppix still around? i liked that ok.
try Opera, see if that makes any difference.www.opera.com
good to have you here 80HD

DM

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[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]Click here to see some of my originalmagictricks and trickboxes!

Hahaha thanks! Pretty cool place, and I enjoy helping out - I signed up because I am going to do some electrical and remote gate stuff in the future, but saw this forum and said HEY! If I am going to leech off of one side, I can try to help the other.

You bring up a good point on the RAM - Thurman, when you take it out, make sure the contacts are clean - they should be fairly shiny copper.

Thanks for all the reply's and helpful suggestions, 80HD-It will take some time for me to follow all of your suggestions as I'm not a computer savvy person. I did try this and it has seemed to help-I had an extra battery and decided to put it in as I had not used it in a while. After putting it in and letting it charge up I have not had this laptop drop out since. I very seldom run this unit on just the battery(s) as they both have a short life span, so I just plug it in. Maybe there was something in the other battery causing this laptop to drop out, who knows? Now if I can get the scroll on the touchpad to work I'll be back to normal. I do have a wireless mouse and it works fine, but I just miss my scroll function. Thanks, David